


Lavellan Dances

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Storied Past, Storied Present [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, City Elves, Dancing, Dirty Dancing, Elven Alienages, F/M, Falling In Love, First Dance, Forced Prostitution, Ice Skating, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inquisitor Backstory, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Mentioned Merrill - Freeform, Mentioned Varric Tethras, Multi, Pole Dancing, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 15:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10311653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: For Enasalin Lavellan, dancing is both a hobby a passion, a way of toning his body, and a means of coping. This story looks at the different circumstances during which he enjoyed (or attempted to enjoy) this pastime: as a hunter back home with his plan, a sex worker in a human city's slums, a raider from Isabela's crew, a goods hauler at the Kirkwall docks, the utterly confused Herald of Andraste, and the Inquisitor.





	

***  
  
  
Lavellan dances. Well, twirls and staggers and wobbles are all better words, really. He is but a da'len, and his tiny legs still retain a bit of an infant's chubbiness. Now and again, the tufts of grass twist round his bare, grubby little feet, making him lose balance and plop down on his hind quarters. But he is not discouraged; he looks up at his parents with a sunny, gap-toothed smile, and giggles as they pull him to his feet, eager to try again.  
  
'You will be turning him into a stereotyped frolicker at this rate, vhenan,' his father says jokingly.  
  
'Nonsense,' his mother reprimands her bond-mate, with a mock slap on the shoulder. 'Agility is good for a future hunter - and what's the harm in turning his training into a little bit of fun?'  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances, side by side with his mother, two slender shadows moving gracefully through the gaps between the trees, circling round and round, soaring over mossy logs in tremendous, seemingly effortless leaps and turning several times before each landing, their green tunics in a whirl - so that any shemlen onlooker will surely mistake them for woodland sprites and make a run for it before they hex him.  
  
Their clanmates think their family odd, eccentric - but they do not really object, as after performing such stunts, after pushing their bodies to impossible limits, the huntress and her teenage son find it easy to scale the highest cliffs, to endure the longest chases, and to always return with game.  
  
It will not be long before he earns Aldruil's vallaslin, just like mamae - and the thought makes the young elf glow with pride. But at the same time, deep inside, he feels that there is joy to be found in the dance itself, with or without the promise of a reward.  
  
For him, dance is not mere training - it is elation, and excitement, and sweet longing to rise ever higher, to touch the warm golden dust that swirls in the beams of light, with his tremulous, outstretched fingers. And as he catches a glimpse of his mother's eyes, glimmering pools of silver against her sun-kissed skin, just like his - he knows she feels the same way.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances. But this time, his eyes are closed, so as not to see the faces that leer at him from the smoky murk, sizing him up with a lick of their lips and a click of their tongue, while large shemlen fingers rub at the jangling coins through the fabric of a purse or a pocket, counting, calculating, figuring out if they can afford his time.  
  
And his time is pricy: he is the best piece of the establishment; toned and fit like none of the hapless scrawny city elves that work here with him - and at the same time still so young and pretty, with those big, soulful silver eyes and long black hair, which he, so far, wears in a bun, combed smoothly back, but will let hang loose once the shems toss enough coin under his feet, letting the glossy strands whip around him in wavy ribbons, the only thing covering him by then (save for a silly little codpiece with a string at the back). None of that money goes to him, however.  
  
He has a deal with the madam, who came to his aid when he was too dazed and confused and shook and sobbed too much to think clearly, and would have surely been dragged away by the guards. She helped him dispose of the body of one of her clients, whom he had struck in anger over abusing a city elf (gods, why did he ever come up with this insane idea to patrol the streets of the nearest town like a storybook vigilante!). And that is a service that needs to be repaid most generously.  
  
His clan must have left a long time ago - thinking him dead, perhaps - but he has to stay behind, keeping up his end of the bargain, entertaining human men and women till there is not a spot in his body that is not sore. First, it was supposed to be a week; then, a month - but now, as he keeps the shower of coins going with the dizzying, seductive twists of his half-bared body, it seems that he will stay in here forever. All he can do, to ease the gripping pain that this thought stirs up inside him, is to keep his eyes closed, and let the dance carry him off, somewhere far, far away, where the light is green and gold instead of dimmed red, and his mother still looks at him, smiling gently.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances. At first, the steps he makes, his soles beating down at the thin layer of fine sand dragged onto the tavern floor, are slow and faltering, as the rhythm of Rivaini drums is quite unlike the rustling song of the forest or the creaking, groaning music at the brothel. But very soon, he picks up the melody, inhales it together with the briny breath of the sea through the window, and lets it spread through his body with a quickening stream of blood, throbbing in tune with his heartbeat. And soon, nothing remains but this dual drumming, in the room and inside his chest; he soars on its invisible wings, sinking completely into the stream of evening sunlight, the way he tried to do when he was a child, throwing back his head and just barely stroking the boot-battered floor with the gentle touchdowns of his bare toes. His entranced, circling flight draws awed gasps out of the onlooking sailors, who have perched themselves on empty barrels and cargo crates; some of the rhythmic throbbing fades away, and, returning to reality, he notices that the Captain is grinning at him.  
  
This makes a warm blush creep stealthily up his neck and cheeks - but not because he is being watched, slyly and knowingly, by a beautiful woman: after so much time... in his previous line of work, he has conditioned himself to be unfazed by the most lecherous of glares. No, he blushes because he is flustered by his damnable inability to properly express how thankful he is being set free.  
  
All it took was one frown of realization. Ine barely audible murmur in his burning ear, 'Damn, but you are stifled here, aren't you, pretty boy?', as he was passing her by during his performance, resting for a moment in her lap and tracing the outline of her shoulders with a see-through silken scarf. One shattering eruption of bar braw. One race down to the docks in the confusion, twin daggers flashing as the Captain guarded his back... And the shackles of his former dismal life were cast aside.  
  
He is a raider now; a member of Captain Isabela's crew, following her not out of necessity, but out of his own desire to see the world that would never have otherwise opened to him - and out of boundless gratitude. And the only way he can try to convey that gratitude, his clumsy words failing him, is by dancing. By pouring as much raw, pure joy into every motion as he is capable of. By making the bird-like sweeps of his arms and the pattering rhythm of his feet spell out what his voice would choke on.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances. But this time, the joy is gone again. It is all gone. The ship has sunk, the crew has either been swallowed up by the frothing, spitting maw of the Waking Sea, or scattered off, forever lost in a crowd of strangers - and Captain Isabela is nowhere to be found either. He is back to slumming among  bitter, downtrodden city elves, eking out a meagre living by hauling goods now and again at the Kirkwall docks.  
  
Few elves would have landed a job like this, generally being looked down upon by humans as spindly weaklings. This makes Lavellan's neighbours rather resentful - he can feel it in their glares as he trudges across the alienage market after a long day of work, pushing himself to hurry up and get there before the stalls close, lest he be left with no supper. Sometimes, when the frowning men and women look at the hardened muscles of his anchor-tattooed arms, which might even have allowed him to pass as a human if he covered his ears, he can almost imagine them reaching out and ripping off chunks of his flesh, crazed like voracious stray dogs.  
  
It is a wicked thought to have, and wrong - and he tries to placate his guilt over the tricks of his tired mind, by giving away part of his wages to his fellow elves, and inviting them to have modest meal at his little shack whenever they desire. Of course, together with his strenuous work, cutting down his rations to share with other does not fail to take a toll on his body, and there are nights when he cannot fall asleep, silver eyes brimming over with silent tears, as his stomach clenches with a hungry growl, and burning pain coils like fraying rope in every joint of his back. And yet, he still dances.  
  
Even as he grinds his teeth and measures every breath with pained slowness, he still dances. Where the floor of another elf's home would have likely been littered with empty bottles, his is marred by greasy bare-soled footsteps, tracing countless circles in the unswept dust. He still dances. For dancing is the only thing he has left.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, his feet finally feel the springy texture of the forest moss, and his silver eyes reflect the overturned tops of the swaying trees. He dances for his parents, who, having aged more than they should have when he was gone, can no longer join him, and are merely watching him turn around and leap, while sitting on a large tree stump with their hands tightly clasped together. It was their idea to lead him here, reliving the days when he was a toddler. If it were not for them, he might never have had it in him to whip himself into shape and take to the sun-warmed air again.  
  
For even though he has returned home, thanks to the efforts of his long-lost-and-then-found Captain and her little friend from another clan - he... He does not feel like he belongs here any more.  
  
He has often dreamed of going back to the familiar, welcoming wilds of the Marches, of taking up the traditional bow and clothing himself in forest-shaded garments, and being called 'da'len' and 'lethallin' again... But now that, unexpectedly, miraculously, the dream has come true, all feels so... alien. The aravels, the halla, even the sight of his own reflection in the water, now bearing Aldruil's vallaslin, bestowed upon him years later than on his peers.  
  
He has gone through so many selves since he last lay down on the bank of a woodland creek and gazed at himself, imagining how the sacred markings would look on his skin. He has been a dock worker, a pirate, a... a whore - and now he is back to what he once thought was his destiny... But is it really? His destiny? He is not certain of that, not the way he was when he was young. It is as if... As if every time when he shifted into a new self, a part of his soul got chipped away, leaving behind cracks that might, at any moment, make him fall apart and crumble into nothing.  
  
The only part that holds this brittle construct in place is dancing. And by asking him to dance for them, to delight them with one more twirl, one more leap, one more deep bow, his parents are keeping him whole.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances. This time, with an added challenge. Inspired by various stories by how people entertain themselves during the harsh winters to the south of the Waking Sea, he has cautiously asked Master Harritt if it would be possible to attach small, narrow blades to the soles of his boots.  
  
'To... To cut faster across the frozen lake on... Inquisition business', he explained, coughing into his fist.  
  
The blacksmith raised his eyebrows, but seemed to buy it; and now, after quite a few bumpy falls, Lavellan has figured out how to glide across the dark, hard surface, flurries of ice shavings bursting from under the metal blades, and how to land confidently on his feet after a whirling jump towards the shimmering green sky. He has made sure to pick an enclosed space between two rocks, where nobody would see him - because he is certain that they will scoff and mock him, calling 'all that boyish skating' an unfitting pursuit for the Herald of Andraste.  
  
But that is precisely why he needs to dance, all alone amone the snow and ice, tracing elaborate patters out of fine silvery lines underfoot.  
  
He needs to dance because this is all too much for him: being hailed as the champion of the human god, being tasked with banishing demons with his suddenly oh-so-magical touch, being expected to pick a side in the mage-templar war... And the steady motions of his limbs, the pleasant strain in his muscles, the breathtaking sensation of speed as he rushes across the lake - all of this calms him down, helps him at least somehow collect his wildly scattering thoughts. Maybe, once he has danced enough, he might be able to go back to the Chantry with a coherent answer to at least one of the questions he is supposed to deal with.  
  
And thus, he dances, quiet and thoughtful, absorbed in the vague rhythm he hears inside himself - and unaware of the widened pair of brown eyes that watch him through a gap in between the shielding rock, growing glassy and mesmerized, while a scarred face slowly gets tinted bright crimson.  
  
  
***    
  
  
Lavellan dances, flitting across the rustling carpet of dead leaves, wearing moonlight like a mantle on his bared shoulders. He recollects all the sensual, enticing moves he was to pull off back at the brothel - and then hones them, perfects them, purifies them, doing his utmost to give them substance, to turn them into something more than just paid-for entertainment.  
  
He is not merely doing his job, trying to find at least some joy in the dance to make the night end sooner - he is brimming over with excitement; he has to hold back a genuine, ecstatic laugh every time he glides close to her, teasingly caresses her neck with the very tips of his fingers, allows her to unwrap a single bit of his garments, and then draws back again, leaving her flushed and breathless and giddily looking forward to more.  
  
Again, he has found himself fumbling for words, unable to properly describe this tingle that ripples inside of him, making it hard to catch a breath, whenever his steadfast battle companion stops frowning for but one moment, or expresses concern over his half-healed wound, or (dear gods!) admires his finesse with a bow, or glances down at her armoured boots and coughs out something along the lines of 'Varric says you used to be a sailor... I don't suppose you can share... the details of an exciting voyage... No, no - forget I ever said this!'.  
  
Dancing for her, with a wreath of roses resting on his flowing hair, his figure sculpted by candlelight, is the most coherent way in which he can tell her how awed he is by her strength and beauty, how happy he is to have had her by his side on this arduous journey, how much he respects her, and cares for her, and yearns for her... It is his equivalent of a proper Dalish elf's 'At lath ma'.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Lavellan dances; and even though he is wearing tall leather boots (something that he does not do too often, but the occasion demanded it, and the look on Josephine's face was too urgent for him to go against her), he slides across the polished floor of the ball room as if he were skating on the icy lake back in Haven, when his vhenan first saw him, and had to stifle an undignified girlish squeal of adoration.  
  
Unlike in Haven, however, this dance is far from secluded: the eyes of countless nobles follow each one of his bold sweeps, widening in the slits of their masks every time he does a one-legged turn on the tips of his toes - and his figure is reflected manifold in the gilded mirrors.  
  
Cassandra stumbles after him, hardly able to keep up. Taller and less graceful than her companion, she seems embarrassingly out of place in the ballroom's spotlight; she might even have minded that, glaring at the tittering Orlesians and marching off to do something more important than dancing, like yell at Bull before he can completely ransack the buffet, or pull Solas away from the wine-serving girls, or find a napkin for Sera (maybe even use it for its intended purpose herself, because the girl will just draw something rude on it instead of wiping whipped cream off her face), or stop some snooty noble from harassing Dorian before the man fries him with a fire ball. But she does not mind - for being so close to her Inquisitor in the middle of one of his magnificent dances makes it all worth it.  
  
'I am not tiring you, am I?' Lavellan asks quietly, looking up at Cassandra with a tone of guilt in his voice. 'The thing is... I have... I have danced solo  most of my life'.  
  
There is something in his eyes when he says it - something that makes Cassandra let out a small 'Oh' and draw him into a kiss - Orlesian onlookers be damned.


End file.
